I donít understand how anyone with half a brain can be a republican. Republican polices have been proven to destroy the economy, and produce high crime rates.
The party has become so far right that they are horrible for America's financial well being.

Here is the fact; Obama is not a socialist, he is a center right candidate running against an extreme right candidate Mitt Romney. What America needs is a good center candidate. It has been proven time and time again that mixed economy's are the most financially stable. The masses will have to have enough money to spend and then the elite can make money off them. This is how America was so successful in 1950ís and 1960ís. In America today this is less and less possible. Wages for the masses have not increased adjusted for inflation in over 40 years. The elite have been able to increase their net worth over the last 40 years by increases in efficiencies of business (automation, and computers) and by having their taxes lowered. They have been able to keep Americans buying by expanding credit but Americans credit has been maxed out. So now the elite have been investing more and more overseas, this is what Mitt Romney and his friends are doing now. We are probably going to elect a president that doesnít even want to invest in America. Without increases to wages for the masses we will not ever see a strong America again.

Mitt wants to lower the elite taxes again (his taxes ) he already pays less than 13%. Why should the elite have lower tax rates than working people? Besides, lowering of the elite taxes hasn't worked in past to boast the economy why would it work now?

If you want proof of right wing polices not working, you don't have to look any further then America. Letís look at the conservative states in America versus the so called liberal states. In reality, all of America is relatively conservative, even Massachusetts is classically conservative (low divorce, pro investment). It is just that Mississippi, Georgia, and the other republican states are now extreme conservative places.

well to start, anyone who can't even follow the basic rule of american government, which is separating church and state, probably won't do much better at actually being a competent leader. unfortunately republicans tend to focus more on their sky deities and use their "teachings" for oppression and judgement more than democrats.

you can look at the average iq per state and find almost every single low iq state is heavily republican and religious. the facts speak for themselves and shows just how bad it can get.

i'm just using religion to make a point that anyone stupid enough to oppress themselves with fictional characters is going to be open to oppression through other means, in this matter, government. there are a multitude of other things wrong with republicans (and democrats as well), but the sheer lack of cognitive thought by most republicans is the most alarming in my opinion and shows how truly stupid they are.

if you look at the meaning of the words liberal and conservative it even shows the nature of the people. i mean, really, who would want to label themselves "conservative"? by it's nature it means reserved and not open to information. not being open to information is pretty much the textbook definition of ignorance.

sadly the adage "ignorance is bliss" is NOT correct. it should be "ignorance is bliss, but only for those who are ignorant" because it sure makes life for those of us who choose to use our brains difficult.

This is the most idiotic thread ever. The OP accuses others of having a low IQ, and yet he's not even smart enough to define his terms or establish any sort of causality to back up his totally superficial, biased claims before spamming the board with an ill-conceived, waste of space thread.

Indeed. My family are quite intelligent, and in the older generations, they all lean conservative. My grandmother is a staunch republican. I understand how the stereotypes get started, but it irritates me when people accuse one side of being the thing that they then end up being. In this case, the OP accused republicans of being misinformed, and then went on to claim that although Obama is a left-of-center moderate, Romney is a far-right conservative, when Romney's voting record puts him at a pretty good right-of-center in the first place. He's certainly campaigning as a far-right republican right now, but the chances of him following through on most of his campaign promises are very slim. I take more issue with his inconsistency and unwillingness to run on what is obviously his actual position on various issues than with the level of his conservativeness.

Not so sure about the "ill-conceived, waste of space thread" part, though. That would seem to imply that there was some sort of substance, real or intended, in any of the other threads on the parts of the forum that aren't meant to disseminate legal information to expats working in Korea. This whole thing is meant to be a place for cheap entertainment and the venting of various sentiments. It's not exactly a bastion of intellectual discourse.

After failing the country during the Bush years, Republicans have tried to bring Democrats down to their level. By opposing and defeating any legislation proposed by Democrats, their hope has been that they could make Democrats look like miserable failures too. Libertarian policy has proven to be disastrous. A less intrusive government in economics just makes it easier for rich people to take advantage of poor people. Fraud is clearly not self correcting. In a state of anarchy might makes right. Only government can correct the situation according to basic political philosophy- a simple concept that seems to be beyond the intellectual grasp of most libertarians.

After failing the country during the Bush years, Republicans have tried to bring Democrats down to their level. By opposing and defeating any legislation proposed by Democrats, their hope has been that they could make Democrats look like miserable failures too. Libertarian policy has proven to be disastrous. A less intrusive government in economics just makes it easier for rich people to take advantage of poor people. Fraud is clearly not self correcting. In a state of anarchy might makes right. Only government can correct the situation according to basic political philosophy- a simple concept that seems to be beyond the intellectual grasp of most libertarians.

And basic economics (that even a 3 year old could comprehend) is far beyond the intellectual grasp of ghostrider. Comparing libertarians to Bush is the most asinine thing ever.

Most people often forget a minor concern that conventional democracy, be it presidential or parliamentary, dumbs down the general population. This is a core reason for people of any democratic country to vote for the worse.

After failing the country during the Bush years, Republicans have tried to bring Democrats down to their level. By opposing and defeating any legislation proposed by Democrats, their hope has been that they could make Democrats look like miserable failures too. Libertarian policy has proven to be disastrous. A less intrusive government in economics just makes it easier for rich people to take advantage of poor people. Fraud is clearly not self correcting. In a state of anarchy might makes right. Only government can correct the situation according to basic political philosophy- a simple concept that seems to be beyond the intellectual grasp of most libertarians.

And basic economics (that even a 3 year old could comprehend) is far beyond the intellectual grasp of ghostrider. Comparing libertarians to Bush is the most asinine thing ever.

The Bush years in fact support the Libertarian position (as in his policies were so contrary to Libertarians that one might think they're right about a thing or two*).

*this is coming from a generally left-of-center voter

How is the Iraq war a libertarian policy? Or the prescription drug bill? Or TARP? I'm curious.

Anyway, OP, a lot of it comes down to personality and who voters like personally. Sorry, but that's the truth of the matter.

And honestly, while I do think Bush winning in 2000 was truly ruinous for this country (mainly due to Iraq and the idiocy of tax cuts and jacking up government expenditures at the same time), I think voters made the right call in 2004. Kerry was crap, and Bush's 2nd term wasn't that bad. I say that as someone who voted for Kerry too (based on Bush's 1st term).

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Republican polices have been proven to destroy the economy, and produce high crime rates.

Please explain how Republican policies have produced high crime rates. I'm not clear on that one.

Anyway, OP, a lot of it comes down to personality and who voters like personally.

True. Charisma and identity-declaration account for the overwhelming majority of the votes cast. And that is not necessarily limited to the major parties; the near-worship Ron Paul receives from certain small demographics is far more a declaration of identity than a coherent political stance in many cases, especially from college students who, if they saw most of his views written down without his name attached to them, would blanch.

Please explain how Republican policies have produced high crime rates. I'm not clear on that one.

Higher disparities in income is a major factor in crime rates and so is education achievement. Conservative republican states usually have higher disparities between income and less educational achievement. Also poorer states in general (republican states) have higher crime rates.

Liberal policies are suppose to address the problems of disparity and low educational achievement with progressive tax codes, and higher funding of public education. As result crime rates will usually drop.

1) The 10 poorest states thing is a bit of a stretch to call "Republican" Those states were dominated by the Democrats through the 60s and retained a strong Democratic influence into the early 90s. While those states might have been conservative socially, they were more progressive economically.

One might also look at the Democratic state and city governments that are going bankrupt.

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Why should the elite have lower tax rates than working people?

If they use it towards reinvestment and domestic job creation, then it's a good thing.

Unfortunately the elites are increasingly less likely to do such things in our country.

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A less intrusive government in economics just makes it easier for rich people to take advantage of poor people.

que? And a more intrusive government doesn't? Who do you think runs the government? Poor people?

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9 out of 10 of most dangerous states for crime are republican

I'm willing to bet that 9/10 most dangerous cities for crime are Democratic.

And just food for thought- Who has been better for the environment- W. Bush or Al Gore? The answer might not be as obvious as you think. Think which one has actually persuaded people to change their energy consumption habits. That's right, Bush. Now this is because of his terrible foreign policy and Iraq debacle as well as disaster prone oil refineries and gutting of FEMA. But through sheer ineptitude (or evilness if you think Cheney is in charge) which led to the spike in gas prices, Americans actually changed their energy consumption habits and sought out fuel efficiency. Hybrids went from some geeky idea to being another "guy" thing to one-up each other on.

Sometimes human beings are so dumb, in order to bring about social good you need Vader-esqe Republican policies that manipulate schmoes into doing something for the better.

Please explain how Republican policies have produced high crime rates. I'm not clear on that one.

Higher disparities in income is a major factor in crime rates and so is education achievement. Conservative republican states usually have higher disparities between income and less educational achievement. Also poorer states in general (republican states) have higher crime rates.

Liberal policies are suppose to address the problems of disparity and low educational achievement with progressive tax codes, and higher funding of public education. As result crime rates will usually drop.

1. I like mnjetter's line about people not coming here for intellectual discussion, they come here for entertainment. That is a good insight.

2. While it was more soundbite than philosophical treatise, Ghostrider made some good points. I don't think his intent was to say that Bush's economic policies where libertarian but that libertarian economic policies are not a good alternative to Bush's (or even Obama's). I agree that you have to agree to ridiculous amount of precepts (postulates) before you can make the logic of libertarian economics work. If you could somehow enforce the precepts with government or some other power such as a strong man, it might have a chance but it just seems like far too many "ifs" for me to work. And, chances are it will just give wealthy, powerful interests free reign at the expense of others to even a higher degree than our current economic system.

3. Bush, like many ideologues, found that reality is different than the fantasy of his ideals and pushed policies that he would not have supported before he was president. I think most (probably all) ideologues will discover this when they actually have to govern.

4. I disliked Steelrails a number of Steelrails' points. I wil highlight some.

A. "Who do you think runs the government? Poor people?" - Steelrails.
While to a certain extent, true today, it is not an eternal truth. Power and objective of policies are relative to the people in power and the ideas and policies they govern by. In other words, we have a democracy. The only reason why our current politics tilt to the rich are because the people have allowed it to. It wasn't the case, in other historical time periods, for example, FDR and to a certain extent during Kennedy and Johnson, though I do want to stress to a certain extent. And, regardless of the objective, government does/should play a role in regulating the economic system even between elites. The U.S. government has been moving away from this with disasterous results, i.e. the current economic crisis and the numerous banking scandals that have been plagueing us since at least the S&L scandal of the late 80s/early 90s, which was one of the biggest causes of U.S. debt.

B. "Sometimes human beings are so dumb, in order to bring about social good you need Vader-esqe Republican policies that manipulate schmoes into doing something for the better." - Steelrails.

This is just scary. I don't know what you are going on about here but if you look intellectual/scientific development over the ages, even the reforms of government and economy, that is simply not true.

Saying that we were better off having Hitler because it taught us that racism was wrong (which is akin to what you are saying) is quite demeaning to the millions who died because of it; minimumly, it is an unnecessary waste of life to learn a lesson.